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Look Elsewhere Too
Why is India
not probing the possible role of Hindutva forces in Pune blasts?
WSN Bureau
 India seems to
be hitting a dead end in the investigations into the German bakery
blast and there is a clear possibility that the Manmohan Singh
government may ask the recently set up National Investigation Agency
to take over the case.
The pace of
investigations has been very tardy and the
Maharashtra
government and police have proved completely unequal to the
challenge.
However, the
most shocking an important point is that all the talk in the media
and various leaks that Indian investigation agencies often indulge
in have been talking about the role of the jihadist groups and thus
playing on the image of the stereotyped Muslim terrorist. While the
Indian media has not been speaking very openly about this aspect,
the saner elements have not been ruling out the role of certain
Hindutva groups. It has not escaped the notice of sharp experts that
certain key suspects in Abhinav Bharat’s terror campaign have never
been held.
While much is
being written in India about jihadi terrorists, the point to be
noted is that those who carried out acts of reprisal terrorism were
largely hailed by the Hindutva organisations. In a succint article
The Hindu, Pravin Swami underlined the possibility that the saffron
brigade may as well be behind the German bakery blasts.
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But the
moot point remains that the Indian media, politicians
across-the-board and even large sections of the civil society have
refrained from speaking about the clear and present danger from the
right-wing terrorism of Hindutva variety while they have had no
qualms in vilifying the Muslims. |
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Swami wrote,
"Last week’s bombing of the German Bakery in Pune has brought the
ugly story of Abhinav Bharat — the Hindutva terrorist group Purohit
helped found — back from the obscurity to which it was consigned by
the Mumbai carnage, which took place just days after the trial in
Nashik began."
"In private,
Hindus sympathetic to the ultra-right have been saying the bombings
demonstrate the moral legitimacy of Purohit and his Hindutva terror
project. Even as the police detained more than two dozen young
Muslim men for questioning, some community leaders have been arguing
that the bakery attack could just have easily been carried out by a
Hindutva group."
Part of the
reason for the controversy is that key suspects involved in Abhinav
Bharat’s terror campaign have never been held. Jatin Chatterjee —
better known by his alias Swami Asimanand — is thought to be hiding
out in Gujarat’s Adivasi tracts, where he runs a Hindu
proselytisation organisation. Ramnarayan Kalsangra, Abhinav Bharat’s
key bomb-maker, is also a fugitive.
Founded in the
summer of 2006, Abhinav Bharat was set up as an educational trust
with Himani Savarkar — daughter of Gopal Godse, brother of Mahatma
Gandhi’s assassin — as its chairperson. But, documents filed by
Maharashtra
prosecutors show, members of the group were soon involved in
discussing armed activity. In June 2007, Purohit allegedly suggested
that the time had come to target Muslims through terrorist attacks —
a plea others in Abhinav Bharat rejected.
But, the
evidence gathered by the police suggests, many within the group were
determined to press ahead. At a meeting in April 2008, key suspects
including Madhya Pradesh-based Hindutva activist Pragnya Singh
Thakur and Jammu cleric Sudhakar Dwivedi, also known as Amritananda
Dev Tirtha, met Purohit to hammer out the Malegaon plot. Explosives
were later procured by Purohit, and handed over to Kalsangra in
early August 2008.
Abhinav Bharat’s
long-term aims, though, went far beyond targeting Muslims: its
members wanted to overthrow the Indian state and replace it with a
totalitarian, theocratic order. A draft constitution prepared by
Abhinav Bharat spoke of a single-party system, presided over by a
leader who “shall be followed at all levels without questioning the
authority.” It called for the creation of an “academy of
indoctrinization [sic.].” The concluding comment was stark: “People
whose ideas are detrimental to Hindu Rashtra should be killed.”
 Purohit’s plans
to bring about a Hindutva state were often fantastical. He claimed,
the prosecutors say, to have secured an appointment with Nepal’s
King Gyanendra in 2006 and 2007 to press for his support for the
planned Hindutva revolution. Nepal, he went on, was willing to train
Abhinav Bharat’s cadre, and supply it with assault rifles. Israel’s
government, he said, had agreed to grant members of the group
military support and, if needed, political asylum.
Unfinished
probe
Many believe
that Abhinav Bharat carried out many attacks earlier attributed to
jihadist groups — notable among them, the bombing of the Mecca
Masjid in Hyderabad in May 2007, and a subsequent attack on the
famous shrine at Ajmer. Despite persistent questioning of Abhinav
Bharat cadre, though, the investigators have not been able to link
the group to the attacks.
Matters are
complicated by the fact that some of the operations attributed to
Abhinav Bharat may not have had much to do with the group — even
though its leading luminaries claimed responsibility for the
attacks.
For example,
Purohit allegedly claimed to confidants that the attack was carried
out by the Dewas-based Hindutva terrorist Sunil Joshi, who was
murdered in December 2007. But the United States Treasury Department
later imposed sanctions on Lashkar-e-Taiba activist Arif Kasmani — a
Karachi-based jihadist with close links to the Taliban and al-Qaeda
— for financing the attack.
Judging by
recent Hindutva terror attacks, like last year’s bombings in
Goa,
it is unclear if they still have the capabilities to mount a
sophisticated attack of the kind seen in Pune. Few investigators
believe that the organisations — or other Hindutva cells — mounted
the operation. “Still”, says one
Maharashtra
police official involved in investigating both Hindutva and jihadist
attacks, “you can’t help wondering — what if?”
Signs are the
investigation into the bombing of the German Bakery will take time.
All that investigators have by way of suspects are three men
recorded holding brief meetings before the blast by a poor-quality
closed-circuit television camera. From the videotape, it is unclear
if the men had anything to do with the attack.
The longer the
investigation takes, the more time conspiracy theories and
speculation will have to proliferate — likely deepening the communal
fissures the bombing is already opening up.
But the moot
point remains that the Indian media, politicians across-the-board
and even large sections of the civil society have refrained from
speaking about the clear and present danger from the right-wing
terrorism of Hindutva variety while they have had no qualms in
vilifying the Muslims.
24
February 2010
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